


After The End Of The World

by Huggle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Comatose Castiel, Hurt Castiel, M/M, Protective Bobby Singer, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6647272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Apocalypse got cancelled.  </p>
<p>Dean's world might end just the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After The End Of The World

After the end of the world, life pretty much went on as before.

Dean and Sam moved from place to place, hunting things, and every few weeks ended up back at Bobby’s to help out with things there. Now he was semi-retired, Bobby was finding running his salvage/scrap business with one pair of hands something of an issue. He had an open door policy for anybody that had ended up on the right side in the Apocalypse that wasn’t, and needed a place to hole up for a while, so long as they earned their keep. All the same, every time the boys arrived on his porch, he told Dean there were cars in his yard that trembled if some of his houseguests approached them with a wrench.

He wasn’t even getting started on the time he took in the centaur.

Sam had never been mechanically minded, so he helped Bobby with the financial side of the business – “You need to file your tax return, Bobby, not use it as an oil rag or a coaster,” – while Dean puttered about among the rusting wrecks and repair jobs backed up in the yard. It worked well for them, dealing with things that didn’t require Latin to handle and weren’t trying to rip their throats out. Of course, it was never for more than a couple of weeks; just like they needed a break from chasing down monsters and living out of duffle bags and mouldy motel rooms, they also couldn’t live a normal life for too long.

It was the world’s weirdest balancing act, but after years of practice they knew how to make it work.

//

Maybe because of that, Castiel’s addition to the family didn’t throw them off their pace too much. It helped to have angelic back up, and Castiel had put himself squarely between the angels and the Winchesters, and Dean loved him. Also, Castiel seemed to pick up how to fit in as smoothly as he could with their life, and any minor adjustments that had to be made were just that – minor, and no great hardship.

Sometimes it was Sam who ordered a second room because he did catch someone’s eye in a bar, or because he did just need a room of his own for a night. Mostly, though, it was Dean, when Castiel was able to break away from his search for God to join them somewhere. The Apocalypse might be over, Zachariah might be doing Heavenly hard time, Michael and Gabriel might now be ruling Heaven between them, but God was still MIA and Castiel saw no reason to give up searching for his Father.

Sam could get that – it was the same thing that had taken him away from Stanford, left Jess on her own when he should have been there to protect her. Sometimes, he and Cas would sit outside and sympathise in silence about whether it was easier to look for an absent father or to find them.

//

Three months to the day after the world didn’t end, Sam awoke to Dean screaming. Actually screaming. He grabbed the gun from the bedside table and sat up, awake immediately and ready.

Except for what he saw.

Dean was sitting cross legged in the middle of the floor. Castiel was in his arms, and Sam knew that something was wrong. He felt it, like a lump of stone was sitting on his chest.   
Dean was rocking Castiel back and forth, the angel’s name tumbling from his lips in a broken plea, but Castiel never replied. Sam put down the gun and got up, thinking this was it – his brother had been rescued from Hell, survived battles with demons and Armageddon. All the same, Dean would never live through this.

He was standing over Dean when he saw that Castiel was still breathing, or the vessel was at any rate. Castiel was alive.

He just wasn’t actually there.

//

As always, when things got too much, Bobby’s was their bolthole. Nothing seemed insurmountable when they were there. 

Dean carried Castiel inside. The angel hadn’t said a word since he appeared at the motel room, and Sam knew how stricken he looked to Bobby as he followed Dean and his burden inside.

“What happened?” Bobby asked, voice hushed, as he put the kettle on in the kitchen and filled three mugs with coffee, cream and sugar. “What’s wrong with him?”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t even know, Bobby. But it’s bad. It’s like he’s alive but he’s not. I...don’t know what Dean’ll do if we can’t fix this.”

Bobby said nothing. He poured the hot water into the mugs and passed Sam a tray.

//

For all intents and purposes, as far as Sam could determine from some hasty internet research, Castiel was in what could be termed a persistent vegetative state. When they put him on the bed in the panic room, he didn’t move. He didn’t fight or help when they stripped him. He didn’t protest or comment when Dean and Sam checked every inch of him for injury or sigil or anything that could have caused his condition. He didn’t flinch when Dean slapped him hard and would have again if Sam hadn’t pulled him back. 

As far as Sam could tell he wasn’t even aware of Dean sobbing against him, head pressed against Castiel’s bare skin.

Sam wished he wasn’t aware either, and then felt like a coward as he eased his exhausted brother on to the bed and covered the two men with a blanket before he settled down to watch over them.

//

After three days there was no change in Castiel. They tried different things, exposed him to different stimuli. Sound, sensation, smell, taste. Nothing seemed to provoke a response from the angel. Dean was the one to suggest a bath, and Sam wondered what good it would do. 

Now Castiel was full on angel again, he didn’t need to be cleaned. If he got dirty, he simply ‘thought’ the grime away. But Sam recognised someone grasping at straws and so he helped run a bath and carry Castiel upstairs.

He left Dean to do the actual bathing, and the towelling off, and then it was Sam who carried Castiel downstairs again. Dean couldn’t. He was still in the bathroom, hoping the draining water covered the sound of his tears.

//

Dean and Sam both had a room of their own at Bobby’s. Dean just wasn’t using his. He slept in the panic room, arms wrapped around Castiel, like he was trying to make up for not being there when something had happed to Cas to make him like this.

Sam sat with him as much as he could, sometimes trying to soothe him and sometimes just being there. It didn’t seem like there was much else he could do.

He was starting to think Castiel might be like this forever. If that happened, then he also knew Dean would never leave Bobby’s house again.

//

Barely a week later, Michael arrived like a storm breaking over the house. Sam was in the kitchen, preparing food he knew Dean wouldn’t eat. Bobby was coming downstairs, and he gave Michael a glare that could have stripped paint. Michael just stared back at him.

“Where’s my brother?” he said, finally.

Sam knew it was pointless, but he and Bobby both stood in front of the door that led down to the panic room. Yes, Michael had decided in the end that there didn’t have to be a world ending battle – although Castiel and Gabriel had a lot to do with him reaching that decision – but Michael had also stood by and watched as Zachariah and his cohorts had tormented the Winchesters from day one, had dragged Castiel back to Heaven to endure who knew what torture, had done everything he could to drag a yes from Dean’s lips. 

Making the right choice in the end didn’t make up for all the shit he’d allowed up until then.

“I didn’t come to hurt him,” Michael said, and then he was gone.

Sam and Bobby ran downstairs.

//

Sam wasn’t sure he’d have believed it if it hadn’t happened right in front of his eyes.  
Michael was carrying something. It looked like a giant marble, except it was blue and electricity seemed to sparkle within it. He walked over to where Dean still slept, wrapped around Castiel, and pressed the globe to Castiel’s chest.

Dean started, saw Michael, and tried to gather Castiel further against him.

“Easy,” Michael said. He started to reach out, two fingers poised to touch Dean’s forehead, when a deep voice halted him.

“Don’t.”

Castiel sat up, unsteadily, and Dean gave a low gasp. He pulled Castiel against him, guiding the angel’s head to lean on his shoulder. Castiel closed his eyes, then opened them to glance sideways at Michael. “I am grateful. But now I want you to go.”

If Michael was put out by being dismissed by his younger, lower ranked brother he didn’t show any sign of it. He was gone before Sam could blink.

//

“You won’t tell me what happened?”

Sam sat down to watch as Castiel drank some water, and leaned back against Dean. He knew it wouldn’t sit well with Dean if Castiel didn’t tell him everything. Dean needed to know if there were any wrongs to be righted here. If there was anything or anyone he needed to put down for hurting his angel.

“It became necessary to leave my vessel,” Castiel said, as though that were an explanation in itself. 

“Why?” Dean sounded ready to explode in temper or confusion or both.

Sam could relate. The more Castiel said it, the more he made it sound like something had chased or dragged Castiel right out of the body he had been using for more than a year now. 

Sam had so many questions. He knew Jimmy Novak, Castiel’s vessel, had been killed when the Host had torn Castiel apart. Shouldn’t that mean if Castiel left that body for any reason it should have expired? If Castiel was telling the truth. Unless he wasn’t. Unless he had still been in there, just buried so deeply that it had taken Michael to reach him and call him forth....

Sam inhaled sharply as he got it. Or at least thought he did. Castiel had been in there all along. The blue gemstone...somehow, that was solidified grace. Whatever had happened to Castiel, he’d had his grace torn full away, and the shock of it had driven him into oblivion. 

To admit the truth meant admitting that Michael had been able to call him forth, albeit with the gift of grace, when Dean could not. Sam knew what effect that would have on Dean. He’d never say it out loud but it would nip and gnaw at him until he convinced himself that he and Cas weren’t right for each other if Michael could reach him when Dean couldn’t.

“Dean. There isn’t anything or anyone for you to defend me against here. It’s enough that I’m with you now.”

Sam stood quietly as Dean leaned in to kiss Castiel. He wondered if his brother believed it. Was Castiel telling the truth now? Was the thing or person or whatever that had done this still out there? Or had Castiel or Michael or Gabriel already taken revenge on him?

He hoped they had, because anything that could rip out an Angel’s grace like they had done Castiel’s was not something he wanted to meet.


End file.
